Consciousness and Reality

The "Consciousness and Reality" graduate conference aims to bring together students and researchers from around the world in order to develop a deeper understanding of consciousness in reality and possible virtual worlds.

At its first edition, the conference will take place 10-11 June 2022. It will have a mixed format, in that speakers may choose whether they present online only, or face to face at the event's location (if so, their session will enjoy a live audience, but it will also be streamed to remote participants).

Keynote speakers:

Mircea Dumitru (University of Bucharest)

Gualtiero Picinnini (University of  Missouri)

Hong Yu Wong (University of Tȕbingen)

Panels/topic areas: 

• Consciousness in the context of virtual reality (experience, action, immersive virtual realities);

• Consciousness and first-person data (heterophenomenology, first person data);

• Explaining phenomenal consciousness;

All times below are for Bucharest, Romania. The conference programme is the following: 

JUNE 10

10:45 Opening remarks (Andrei Mărăşoiu, University of Bucharest)

11:00 Keynote speaker - Prof. Mircea Dumitru, University of Bucharest. 'Philosophers on Consciousness. How to Crack Down on the Hard Problem'

12:15 Break

12:20 Mathijs Geurts, Radboud University Nijmegen. 'Is variation in consciousness just evolutionary noise?'

13:00 Break

15:00 Marcelino Botin, University of Barcelona. 'Revelation and the Dilemma for Russellian Physicalists'

15:40 Break

15:50 Robert Chiș-Ciure, University of Bucharest. 'A Priori vs A Posteriori Explanatory Strategies—Integrated Information Theory and the Temporospatial Theory of Consciousness'

16:30 Break

17:00 Keynote speaker - Prof. Hong Yu Wong, University of Tȕbingen. 'What it’s like to act'

18:15 Break

18:30 Keynote speaker - Prof. Gualtiero Piccinini, University of Missouri. 'Qualitativism: Consciousness Consists of Physical Qualities'

20:00 Break

20:15 Round Table

JUNE 11

12:00 Chingiz Pasha, University of Tartu. 'Electrically Simulated Reality, Sets of Phenomenal Experiences, and the Opportunity of Having Different Selves' 

12:40 Break

12:50 Ștefăniță Manea, University of Bucharest. 'The Kuleshov effect and the Theory of Mind'

13:30 Break

13:40 Alexandra Chirilă, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. 'Connectionism’s new wave'

14:20-16:00 Break

16:00 Shivanand Sharma, University of Birmingham. 'On Vedānta and the fundamentality of consciousness'

16:40 Break

16:50 Yen Tung Lee, Western University. 'Virtual Veridicalism, Cognitive Orientation, and Fregean Representationalism'

17:30 Break

17:40 Chenyu Bu, University of Texas at Austin. 'Toward a Kantian Approach to Perception as Predictive Processing'

18:20 Break

18:30 Guilherme Nunes de Vasconcelos, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). 'Illusion or allusion? An ecological-enactive approach to virtual reality experiences'

19:10 Break

19:20 Round Table

For any questions, please don't hesitate to email [email protected]